


Counterpoise

by ifyouwereamelody



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Ambassador Katara (Avatar), F/M, Fire Lord Zuko, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Smut, They're in love and everyone knows it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:41:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28742667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifyouwereamelody/pseuds/ifyouwereamelody
Summary: They both know where this is going. The question has already been answered in the twining of their fingers, in the heady, heart-racing silence that falls over them as he walks her to her quarters.But somehow, no matter the inevitability of it, he’s still not ready for the way her mouth feels against his. There’s a balance to it all; a delicious, desperate harmony in the way he pushes and she pulls.
Relationships: Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 243





	Counterpoise

**Author's Note:**

> Hey hey! So this was originally a ficlet for Zutara Drabble December (those of you who've read it might recognise the start from the Heavy Hearts prompt). I'd planned on writing a partner ficlet for the Featherlight prompt later in the month, but never got around to it until now. In the end I decided to merge them into one fic, because really they read right on from one another.

'...and if anything’s worth a drink, I’d say that five years free of war probably makes the cut. Everybody make sure that you’ve got...’

Sokka’s toast fades into the background as another, closer voice brushes past Zuko’s ear.

‘He’s really gotten better at public speaking. At least now he doesn’t drop everything he’s holding.’

He chuckles under his breath, eyeing the bottle of wine that Sokka’s brandishing at the crowd.

‘That’s good. Wouldn’t want to waste all that sake.’

Katara prods him in the back, returning his hushed laughter back to him on the buoyancy of her breath.

‘Thought you weren’t drinking, Fire Lord.’

‘That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be upset to lose a good bottle to your brother’s clumsiness. Besides—’

He tilts back, directing his words to her even as he keeps his eyes trained forwards.

‘—my uncle has said he can handle anything that comes up tonight. He said that _sharp wit is overrated when a drink with friends is the alternative_ , then practically forced a glass of shochu on me.’

‘Ah, Iroh. Always such a good influence.’

‘Shh. Stop distracting me, I’m meant to be listening to the toast.’

‘...so I’ll finish with some old Southern Water Tribe advice: to those who are happy, drink to stay that way. To those who are heavy-hearted, drink so that you can bear the rest of the world. And to those who are solemn, dull, or Katara, drink so that the rest of the world can bear you.’

Liquid sprays from the neck of the bottle in Sokka’s hand, dousing the tribesman in rice wine, and Zuko is finally free to be drawn around, snorting with laughter, to the bright lodestone of Katara’s smile.

‘I take it back. Feel free to waste as much sake as you want if that’s what you’re going to do with it.’

‘Noted.’

* * *

They dance laughing, turning messily across the dancefloor with not a right foot between them.

‘I never understood that phrase.’

They dance close, him gripping her tight to stop them both from whirling out of control.

‘What phrase?’

They dance slow, slowly enough that maybe it doesn’t seem as though they’re actually moving at all. Maybe everything else is just spinning around them.

He can feel his uncle pretending not to watch.

‘ _Heavy-hearted_. Things are heavy when they’re full, right? So why would anyone want a light heart?’

She laughs, her arms draped easily around his neck. Her chin drops down towards her chest, forehead pressing briefly against his shoulder as if she might find a resting place there. But then she straightens up, and as she shakes the hair back from her face he’s suddenly flooded with the light, familiar smell of her — salt and mango and something else, something floral that he’s never quite been able to put his finger on.

‘When did you get so poetic?’

_When was the first time you laughed at something I said?_

_Fucking Agni, don’t say that._

His hands press a little warmer at her waist.

‘Must be the wine.’

Her voice skims a little closer at his neck.

‘Yeah. Must be.’

* * *

The stars are caught up in the night’s celebrations, swirling through the sky in a dizzying blur of firebird, crane, dipper. He and Katara lie on the grass, side by side, and they alone are held still as the world takes them for its fulcrum and turns, turns, turns about the point where her knee touches his.

‘So.’

‘So?’

‘What’s got you all heavy tonight, then? You and your heart.’

Too many things, all too much to voice, all some iteration of her.

But it’s okay. Somehow his sake-imbued mind is smarter than his sober one, and it hands him that elusive scent that still floats around them with her lying by his side.

‘Water lilies.’

_Water lilies._

He watches her mouth the words to herself.

He watches her mouth.

He watches her.

And she smiles, slipping closer towards him and settling herself into the crook of his arm, running a line of contact down the lengths of their bodies as her eyes turn back towards the sky.

This is the moment it strikes him that he’s been falling into her for years without even noticing the wind rushing past him, and now he’s finally, _finally_ hitting the ground. The fullness in his chest pulls him down against the grass, fixing him even firmer to the earth.

* * *

They both know where this is going. The question has already been answered in the twining of their fingers, in the heady, heart-racing silence that falls over them as he walks her to her quarters.

He feels dizzy, almost; that laden kind of unsteadiness that only comes from the sudden clarity of something that’s been left uncertain for too long.

But somehow, no matter the inevitability of it, he’s still not ready for the way her mouth feels against his. She still manages to strike every nerve in his body alight and set his blood running sharp and hot in astonishment, still startles his muscles into quaking as her hands slide across his shoulders and up his neck to toy with the hair at his nape. And she seems no better prepared, shivering against him as he nips at her lips and his fingers dance along her spine.

When Katara pulls back, her whisper is laden with five years’ worth of waiting.

‘I think I know what you mean.’

‘About what?’

She takes his hand, presses it against her chest.

‘I don’t think a light heart could beat this hard.’

‘Now who’s feeling poetic?’

She chooses not to answer with words, but the warm, taunting pressure of her lips back on his is more than rhyme and metre enough for him.

The click of her door swinging open speaks volumes.

He sinks under the weight of her touch.

* * *

She floats on the brush of his fingers against her skin.

They go stumbling over the threshold into her room, then all at once Zuko has her crowded up against the door that’s slammed shut behind them, and her chest is full but the rest of her is weightless as his hands bring her body to life.

She hums against his lips, drunk on the taste of sake that still lingers on his tongue. He closes in around her, pins her down with his heat, and slips a thigh between her legs where that aching, needy tension lives; her hips buck against him as he pulls away from her mouth and skims his teeth across her neck, his breath hot in her ear.

‘Are you okay? With all this, I mean. Is this okay?’

She almost laughs. But he’s drawn back to look her in the eye and his face is flushed and earnest, his pupils blown wide with desire but still searching for any hesitation, any sign of her second-guessing the way her fingers have wound themselves into the fastenings of his tunic.

‘Spirits, you’re— It’s more than okay, yeah.’ It’s only after she’s pulled him back against her, caught his bottom lip between hers, and freed him from the swathe of his outer robes that she realises she should probably return the question. ‘What about you?’

He _does_ laugh, a throaty chuckle that ripples right through her as his fingers pause on the ties of her dress and his head drops down to rest against her shoulder.

‘Yeah, _yes_ , I— This is good.’

She turns her face into him and traces the shell of his ear with her lips, cards her fingers through the half-undone tangle of his hair.

‘Good?’

Her hips shift forwards again, seeking out the hardness of him through the layers that still hold them apart, and he growls low into her neck.

‘Ah, fuck, _so_ good.’

It’s no wonder he’s able to lift her so easily — she’s feather-light, a winding wisp of want that curls around him as her feet leave the floor.

* * *

He touches her gentle, mouthing words of worship against the valley of her breasts, the softness of her belly, the inside of her knee.

‘You’re so beautiful. I can’t believe how beautiful you are, can’t believe I’m touching you, gods, your _skin_ —’

‘You’re drunk.’

He touches her hot, winding her higher and higher into a fever as he lays her out before him and outlines her in smoke.

‘I’m not.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I’ll walk in a straight line for you later to prove it. Busy right now.’

He touches her desperate, pinning her hands by her head and tangling his tongue breathlessly with hers until this is all that she is — a ball of glowing, bounding lightness that keens and whimpers as he grinds down against her.

Her legs have already parted for him, wrapped around him so that he’s cradled by her thighs, and it’s almost painful how easy it is for him to run a hand down between them and slip his fingers inside her. Her whole body clenches, clamping down in an effort to hold him there because fucking _spirits_ it feels amazing and how is she so close already and—

‘Fuck, _Zuko._ ’

She can feel it, can feel how much he wants to hover here with his name on her lips and his fingers buried in the soft, wet heat of her need for him; there’s a quiet determination in the way he circles her clit, a sureness in the dragging slide of his touch that tells her he’s planning on taking his time. He presses forwards, up, finds a spot that turns her flimsy and tremulous and then beckons her on as his lips do something devastating to her neck.

She arches against him, gasps sharply.

She hears him breathe out her name as if she’s been living somewhere deep in his chest his whole life.

This is the moment it hits her that she’s been rising towards him for years without even noticing the draw to the surface, and now she’s finally, _finally_ bursting out into the open air. He tethers her, the only thing keeping her from being carried away on a passing current.

* * *

‘Tell me you want me.’

Her words are cracked, carried on the sparse, panting breaths that he’s dragging out of her. It’s unearthly, the incredible vulnerability of her weightlessness, the way she climbs and climbs beneath him as he coaxes her slowly airborne.

He’s shaking, half-broken and all beautiful, his cock excruciatingly hard against her thigh; his voice comes wrought and rough against her temple and his words feel like friction.

‘I want you. Fuck, I want you so much.’

‘Tell me you can’t wait anymore.’

His fingers are still inside her, held motionless now as he presses a kiss to the inside of her wrist, brushing his tongue over the sensitive skin there. He screws his eyes tight shut, letting loose a shuddering burst of air into her palm. Then he shakes his head, bleeding frustration even as the words tumble from his mouth.

‘I can’t wait anymore.’

‘Good, because I can’t either.’ She cants up against him, moans at the feel of his skin on hers. ‘Don’t make me wait.’

‘Katara, I’m already so— I want this to be good for you.’

‘It is. Oh _gods_ , it already is, I swear, and I don’t care if— I just need to feel you, please, Zuko, _please_.’

Her hands trail the length of his back, light and lazy, and then she shifts just enough that she can grasp his wrist and bring his fingers out from between her legs, pulling him to lie flush over her until the head of his cock brushes against her wetness; she feels him shiver, his hips jerking helplessly at the soft scratch of her nails across his shoulder blades, but his face is still twisted tight as he clings to the last traces of his control.

Grazing her nose against his, she finds the best and truest plea at her disposal and sets it free against his lips:

‘I don’t want to come without you inside me.’

The grip he holds on her hips tightens, and she feels his resolve give way in the messy promise of his kiss, in the groan that simmers from his tongue to hers as he lines himself up. Then he eases home, bringing them together across a slow, stretching infinity, and the warmth that’s been stirring through her flashes so white-hot and blinding that his sudden stillness feels like an exceptional kind of torture.

A single breath passes between them — her exhale becomes his inhale.

‘Zuko.’

‘Give me a moment.’

His voice is ragged, eyes closed and brow furrowed as he fights to hold himself together; a firebender through and through in his quest for self-control. Katara has no such ambitions, feathering impatient kisses along his jawline until a warning rumbles in his chest and he drags himself back out of her reach. His gaze is heated and wanting, but there’s a smile tugging at his lips.

‘That is _not_ giving me a moment.’

‘Sorry.’

‘No, you’re not.’

‘No, I’m not.’

A beat longer, a moment committed to memory, and then they begin to move.

There’s a balance to it all; a delicious, desperate harmony in the way he pushes and she pulls, in the thrust of his hips and the grasping of her hands. They wind up fast, finding a rolling rhythm that strips her free of any rational thought and narrows the world down to the span of their bodies.

She’s had this kind of heaviness laid over her before, borne this kind of pressure, but it’s beyond clear now that all those times past it’s been the _wrong_ pressure, the wrong weight. As it turns out, all she needs to hold her steady is the way Zuko watches her as she keens and sighs beneath him.

‘Is that alright? Is that good?’

‘ _Yes_.’ The word reverberates, becomes a chant that she whispers into his pulse point like a prayer, over and over again. ‘Yes, yes, yes, _yes_.’

‘ _Agni_ , I— I’m so close, but I want to feel you, I want to feel you come—’

‘Nearly— I’m nearly— Ah, there, _there_ , keep doing that.’

She can feel herself losing her tempo, stuttering into him as her blood rushes and sweat trickles down her hairline and his thumb rubs firm across her throat.

 _Nearly_.

‘I can’t— _Katara_ —’

He jerks once, twice, pinning himself as deep as he can and clutching roughly at her through the spasming surge of his orgasm. Her teeth come down on his shoulder and she tightens around him, teetering so agonisingly close to the brink that every muscle in her body feels taut with the anticipation of it, and then his fingers are back on her clit, calloused and unforgiving, and she—

_Fuck._

She swells, she soars, she ascends.

* * *

The next day comes layered with a wealth of novelties. Every moment spent in Katara’s presence feels charged, loaded with this new-found equilibrium that holds them level; Zuko curls the tip of his little finger against hers under the table as they eat breakfast with their friends —

‘Since when did you eat left-handed?’

‘It’s, uh... It’s a training exercise. For increasing dexterity in swordplay. Yeah, you should try it sometime, Sokka, maybe then you’d actually be able to beat me in a duel for once.’

— her gaze flits over to him during trade discussions, lingering just a fraction too long —

‘Ambassador Katara?’

‘Sorry, councilman, I’m going to have to ask you to repeat your question. My mind went somewhere else for a moment.’

— and he revels in the ease of it all, the quiet secrecy of this shared space that’s known only to them.

He remains blissfully ignorant to the knowing glances that follow them through the day. It’s only later, as she takes his hand and leads him openly through the halls to his quarters without anyone so much as batting an eyelid, that he starts to suspect their evolution might not have gone unnoticed after all.

But as it turns out, that doesn’t change anything.

As it turns out, this space is still theirs no matter who knows of it. Their balance holds. Her eyes are still boundless, and her body still bows to his touch, and their lips still meet just the same.

He falls down into her; she rises up into him.

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler alert this was not fully proofread before posting, so there were probably mistakes, but I'm too sleepy to care right now.
> 
> Reviews are love! <3


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